


Trust Yourself

by sallyamongpoison



Category: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Genre: Fergus feels a lot of things, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Survivor Guilt, mention of amputation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: In which Fergus deals with his new arm, and struggles with the guilt and pain that comes from it.





	Trust Yourself

It would have been completely different if there was pain. Actual pain. That wasn’t strictly true, though. There  _ was _ actual pain. There was pain every minute that he was awake. And asleep. But if it were pain like a broken bone or internal bleeding or something that had a beginning and an end, it would have been different. This had no end. It had beginning, it had begun the minute that bastard had lobbed his arm off at the shoulder, but it seemed like there was no end in sight.

Set’s emergency surgery had been painful. Having metal bolted and screwed into his body had been painful, but he’d managed to get through it at the time. He’d been so angry, so completely overwrought with adrenaline, that he’d hardly noticed the pain then. Everything that had happened up til then had put a wall up against the physical pain he felt. But now? Now it haunted him. It was constant but also completely unpredictable. How did he even account for that? 

It was...God, Fergus had no idea. He’d tried. Of course he had. Set had mumbled something about a ‘learning curve’ and having to ‘trust himself’ with his new arm, but Set wasn’t the one having to wake up to the bitch trying to kill  _ him _ . He could say any sort of bullshit platitude that he wanted. At no point was Set being woken up to some metal nightmare trying to gouge out his eyes or choke him in his sleep.

He was tired. So very tired. Every minute of his life had become like a nightmare. Every part of him hurt. Everything from his brain to his toes. Someone, maybe Set or Blasko, had said that maybe this was about him having to trust himself. Learning curve Fergus’ bloody arse. It sounded poetic, like that shite Anya or Caroline would quote when things got dark and scary, but fergus didn’t have time for that. These days he hardly had time for anything. Being awake and being asleep were the same. It was amazing how much time was taken up by just trying to keep himself alert. This wasn’t a time for poetic nonsense, after all. This was a time to keep his eyes open and his brain as engaged as possible.

But his world was a nightmare. His world was a nightmare and no one seemed to understand. They laughed when he’d turn on his arm and it would start landing punches or start grabbing for his neck...or worse. He’d yet to find the bravery needed to use the thing near his more  _ sensitive _ areas, after all. One night of being woken up with his cock and balls in a metal vice grip had been enough. It really was a nightmare. At this point he was a liability, and they couldn’t risk a liability. That, probably more than anything, was what made it so bad.

The thing had been off for a couple of days now. His sleep had been blissfully uninterrupted as he burrowed into his little nest of blankets. The bruises were starting to heal, too. It just made him...well, he was an arm down. Thank God they’d not been called to do anything too technical for the moment or he would have been in some shit. The bitch was dead weight, though. Even more than learning how to use the fucking thing he’d had to get used to the fact that his side was heavier than it had been. It fucked up his equilibrium something fierce, and nothing felt right.

Nothing had felt right for a while, if ever. 

Blasko, though, had...helped. In his way. In his mopey ‘I know death is coming’ kind of way he’d taken just a minute to look at him. Really look. He’d known the man for so long now, and despite the fact that the fucker was more dramatic than any Scottish Nan...he did help. Those big eyes always did look concerned. And for the first time Fergus felt like someone was listening. Really listening. The advice was shit, of course, but that was secondary. Just knowing someone gave a damn about him on this heap was something. Someone...someone cared.

At night the dreams were enough to make him wish he were dead. Hell, he’d spent the last few years wondering if maybe he should have been. That was when his blasted arm would go ballistic. Then the punching. And the choking. He’d be doing something altogether unrelated and his mind would go somewhere else. To another time. God, and then he’d see Wyatt’s face, and then he’d be on the floor and bleeding from his nose.

Maybe Wyatt would have been able to handle having this blasted thing. Wyatt had been young and good and kind. Fergus had been an angry son of a bitch his entire life, and...there were the moments when he had to wonder if Blasko had made the right choice. Wyatt could have been a beacon of hope. Wyatt...deserved to be there. Wyatt could have taken all their bullshit advice and made it work because he wasn’t some hollowed out shell of a man who didn’t deserve to be there. 

Fergus gasped, eyes flew open, and his other arm flailed out beside him. The bitch had his neck again.  For how long? He’d tried to do the right thing and turn it back on like he was supposed to, and this was how it fucking repaid him? His vision was black around the edges as he rolled side to side on his back like a dying fish. His legs kicked, got tangled in the blankets, and he had to fling his arm over to turn the fucker off. The metal fingers released and he sucked in a lungful of air before he coughed and hacked and gagged. 

He’d seen death more times than he cared to admit, but waking up to it at his own hand was more terrifying than he wanted to admit.

“Fergus?”

He could feel that voice more than he heard it. That drawl. That...something. Fergus looked up to see Blasko leaning in the doorway of his room. There was that concern again. It didn’t do anything, but it was there. Maybe that had to mean something.

“Eh...what’re you doing up?” Fergus asked. His voice was small and strained- high and tight. It still felt like he couldn’t get a full breath. Just how fucking long had the man been standing there and watching? Why hadn’t he done something?

“Doing the rounds,” Blasko answered. Man of few words, really. That was why Fergus liked him so much. “You alright?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Not...not right now. How the fuck did he even answer that? How did he tell Blasko that every day he wondered if he was the right man to have lived? How did he tell William “TerrorBilly” Blaskowicz that he’d made the wrong choice? How did he look him in the face and add another weight to the world that Blasko carried on his shoulders? 

“Fuckin’ bitch…” he managed after a long moment, “still...still getting used to her.”

Blasko regarded him for a long moment. Fergus never really felt small, not in a world where he made it a point to do the right thing, but when Blasko looked down at him like that he felt a bit like a child. Once upon a time his mother would come in his room after he’d had a nightmare, and she’d look at him like that. How had things not changed? How had he come full fucking circle like this?

Slowly, Blasko took a few steps in the room and closed the door behind him. Privacy. Privacy was at a premium on this hunk of Nazi junk, but whatever BJ wanted, BJ got. And now they had privacy. Blasko grabbed the chair that was pushed in against the desk, and took a seat on it so he sat not three feet from where Fergus was still tangled in the blankets on the floor. All he could hear was the two of them breathing now. Even the hum of the engines seemed far away.

“You know, I...dream about him too,” Blasko began, and Fergus blinked a few times. Maybe he’d been without air a little too long.

“Who?”

“Wyatt.”

It was like someone had punched him. It was like metal fingers were closing off his windpipe again. It was like he was in that room, those months ago, and he...God, he knew Blasko had to make a choice. Fergus had felt that weight, had been the one to come back when Wyatt hadn’t, and had to look every single person that had worked with them in the eye after he’d come back alive. But Blasko had to look at them all and know that he’d made the choice for it to happen. He’d...done this.

“You think he’s come back to haunt this thing?” Fergus asked as he gestured to his now dead arm that hung at his side, “try to...make things right, eh?”

“You think Wyatt would do that?”

No. No, the kid absolutely wouldn’t have. There wasn’t a fucking malicious bone in his body, after all. And he’d been the one to die. What the fuck was he even thinking saying something like that?

“Why...why’d you pick me?” Fergus asked. His voice was still shredded, but that had nothing to do with how thick and small the words came out. “I...this fucker’s trying to kill me every time I close my eyes, for God’s fucking sake!”

Blasko’s face was...blank. Maybe that was on purpose. These days the man was so hard to read between the guilt and the pain and the worry. Fergus understood that. With Anya expecting twins of all fucking things, fergus knew that Blasko had a lot to worry about. The future, first of all, and...how to make it better for those kids. So how and why did care about an old man who was officially a danger to himself and to others because he couldn’t control himself?

“I’ve known you a long time,” Blasko sighed, “and...shit, Fergus you  _ know _ why I picked you. You think there’s a world out there where I’d want to be killing Nazis and not have you yelling at me over the fucking mic?”

Fergus swallowed hard, and it hurt. Everything hurt.

“I don’t...I don’t know what to do, mate,” he admitted finally, “I can’t sleep. It keeps trying to kill me.” God help him. What the fuck was he supposed to do?

He looked back up, watched as Blasko settled into the chair with folded arms and his feet out in front of him, and sucked in a bit of a shaking breath. His heart was pounding. His head was pounding. There was nothing else. Maybe...maybe the next time the thing went for an eye or his throat he should just let it finish the job.

“Get some sleep,” Blasko told him, and jutted his chin toward the lifeless machinery hanging from Fergus’ side, “and turn it back on. I’ll...step in if it gets handsy on you.”

One eyebrow cocked, “You’re gonna stay and watch me sleep?” Fergus asked, “is that some weird shit you and Anya do now?”

“Just do it, Fergus,” Blasko said. There was a finality in his words. It was an order, and Fergus knew when to follow orders. “I’ve got your back. And...your arm, I guess.”

He wanted to argue. He wanted to tell him that it was fine. He wanted to pretend like maybe it was all a joke. But he was so tired. He was so tired of his own body, and his mind too he supposed, fighting him. And Blasko...he already had so much to worry about, yet there he fucking was making sure that he got some sleep. 

“Blasko…” he started, and shook his head, “why-”

“Because you’re not alone. Okay? You’re not.”

It would have been better if it had just been physical pain, after all. Something quantifiable to heal. Something that wasn’t his mind and soul that felt torn apart all the time. But maybe this time, just this once, he could trust himself. And Blasko. He didn’t have to be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Christmas gift (though I wonder what that says about me) for my most lovely @frikinik!! Some sad angst for her boy.
> 
> Also, you can always find me on Tumblr! @sallyamongpoison


End file.
